Growing Season

“I’m feeling the invitation to sow seeds,” I said to a friend and mentor.  

//

Every year my husband plants the garden.  

The children swarm around him like insects, digging and dumping seeds and then, later, when what has been done has been done, I tend it, making the most or more of what is. 

As a “maximizer,” this is what I do best, improving upon what is.  I’m not a starter, not a planter, I do not want to face the blank space alone, to feel the weight of all of that potential. 

But as I told my friend, I recently felt God pushing me on that. 

//

The key to sowing, is the open hand, the willingness to let the potential and possibility of each seed fall and scatter; the key to sowing is in surrender and letting go, then waiting to see. 

No wonder I’m not keen on it. 

//

“But what if ALL of these seeds grow?  It'll be too much.” My voice rises in challenge to the task at hand.

God and I stand in the open field beside our house, freshly tilled soil at our feet, rolling hills scalloping the sky in the distance.

“It’s not the plants I’m worried about Kelly, open your hand,” God replies. 

“There must be a right way to do this,” I add, turning toward the house, “Let me go check on-line.  Maybe it’s still too cold.”

“Hey!” God says, with firmness now, “plant the seeds.”

Back at the garden now I bend, seeds in hand, but hesitating still, “How deep should they be?  How far apart?  I don’t know enough.”

God reaches down to where my fist is frozen shut, sweaty, and pulls my fingers open.  The seeds fall in a clump, some sticking to my hand.  

We continue in this way. 

God shakes seeds from the paper packets into my open hand, the impossibly tiny carrot seeds, the large, lumpy cucumber and zucchini.  Then we bend and my fist that closes reflexively is gently pried open and we sow the seeds together.

“See how the ground catches and holds them?” God says, “See how many there are?”

God moves steadily as though the seeds will never run out, as though it isn’t where or how they land that matters most, but simply the fact of throwing them. 

Slowly I begin to believe it too, that this motion of sowing, scattering what is and waiting with faith, THIS is what matters most. 

A steady rain starts just as the last seeds are in and God and I stand watching from the porch. 

The sowing is done.  Some seeds will grow, others will not.  Some will be food for the birds and squirrels, others were duds to begin with and some will grow into the hardy plants that will feed our family through summer and fall. 

But, for now, it’s the sowing that matters, the opening of the hand, again and again. 

//

Later in the season, I excel at the close-handed jobs – the quick slashing of the hoe, the tight grasping and sharp yank needed to pull a weed out by its roots.  Pleased with my work, I look up to see if God is watching me. 

Lounging in the shade with a tall glass of iced tea at his side and book in hand, God seems unimpressed. 

“’Lotta weeds out here,“ I call.

God glances my way and smiles before returning to his read.

I continue, sweating and slashing at weeds, taming the wild garden until the blisters rise and break in the soft flesh of my palms.  Exhausted at last and a little peeved with God’s nonchalance, I toss myself down on the grass nearby. 

A few minutes pass before God speaks, “You are good at those things, good at tending the chaos, at discerning between weed and vine.  You tend your garden well.”  

There’s a heavy pause as the long-sought praise sinks in. 

“But I am concerned,” God says, the words unfolding slowly like a flower's bud, “with the one necessary thing.”  

//

So it goes, year after year.  Some years the garden flourishes, some years it does not and most years it is a terrible mixed-up mess somewhere between the two, but always it starts with the one necessary thing, the opening of my hand.  

What part of gardening do you prefer?  Planting, tending, harvest?

This post is linked with Playdates With God , Unforced Rhythms and Trusting Tuesdays for OneWord 365  (my OneWord this year is 'Open').

We Don't Lick Each Other (The British are Coming!)

 

There are times, as a parent, when you need to establish norms. 

Simple things like the appropriate surfaces for disposing of boogers, whether one may or may not fart on other people, and whether spontaneously licking another human being is ever appropriate.    

So when, for instance, I see Levi lick his brother’s check, I make a firm and direct proclamation, “We don’t lick each other!” 

Or when someone picks their nose while I’m reading to them at bed time and proceeds to wipe it on the wall, I might say, “We don’t wipe our boogers on the wall.” 

As I said, sometimes you need to establish norms. 

While other families may do as they please (Licking? Why, yes, please.   Booger’s on the wall?  Of course, that’s fine art to me!) we here are choosing to dance to a different drum. 

//

“Only 19 and ½ more days of school!” my daughter said.

She may as well have been Paul Revere screaming his midnight warning, so great was my alarm. 

Good God, I thought, where have I been? What’s happened?  The hour draweth nigh!

The British, indeed, are coming. 

The British are coming and they are demanding to be entertained, to be vacation-bible-schooled and swim-lessoned, to be play-dated and day-tripped and, good Lord, I am unprepared. 

Nineteen and a half more days and me without a plan.

//

So I decided to establish some norms.

We are doing SLOW this summer.  We are eating ice cream on the porch and watching storms move through.  We are catching fireflies (if we let them stay up late enough) and getting bored enough to use our imaginations.  We are camping in the back yard because it is FREE and state-parking because it also is FREE. 

We are doing KINDNESS, which is a spacious sort of thing that pairs well with SLOW and the NON-LICKING of other people.  It will take practice and there will be sure-misses, but KINDNESS is also free and I plan to help us all be prodigal in its dispensation by the time fall rolls around.

We are practicing GENTLENESS which, good Lord, is a long enough word to be out of fashion these days, but necessary also for when our KINDNESS slips and SLOW starts to feel like stagnation.  We will not hit when we are farted on, though we may hit (its reflexive) if we are bitten. 

We are doing HOME this summer, because we’ve waited so long to find one and because having a home means making one which isn’t something that can be done without a little presence.  We will be HOME and unhappy and scraping the boogers off the wall.  Then we will still be HOME and laughing as we tell about the ones who ate their boogers and the ones who used them to decorate.  We will be HOME when the first hail storm tears through and when the first peas are ripe for picking.  We will be HOME for skinned knees and sibling frustrations, HOME for sharing and collaboration. 

We will ALL work hard, because I'm not a martyr in the making and we will knock-off before the work is done because, let's face it, it will never really be done. 

We will do vacation bible school and swim lessons and vacation, but they are not our norms, not the hub that holds the spokes of our summer together. 

The British are coming, but don’t worry, it’s ok.  There’ll be almost no licking, I promise. 

What are your family’s summer norms? 

Sucker-Punch (a story of Openness and Vulnerability)

I was so grateful a few weeks ago to receive an invitation from Amber Cadenas to write something for her blog, Beautiful Rubbish: the everyday art of learning to see.  Amber's running a series of guest posts under the topic "Tales of Beauty from the Rubbish Heap," in which she's asking several writer friends to write about story of redemption or beauty found in unexpected places.  Today I'm writing a little more of the "behind the scenes" story of how we found, then lost, then found again this old farm house.  

*   *   *

We wrote an offer on a big old farm house – a solid, happy looking place with great bones, two acres and a “tenant house” – the day after Christmas 2013.  Then we waited a week for the bank representative to return from vacation and reply to our offer.   

This was the fourth house we bid on over an eight month period.  We'd been through enough ups and downs to be cautious, but this time around we were very, very excited.  We tried to simmer down about it, but one day I brought home a stack of Organic gardening magazines I found on the free shelves at the local library, then my husband started researching chickens on-line.  Soon I was scanning Craigslist for the cabinets and fixtures needed to bring the place up to speed for a family of six.  

But it wasn’t until the last day, the day before we would hear back, that I really let myself get excited.

It felt so right . . .

 

Follow me over to Amber's place to read the rest of this surprising story, won't you? And while you're there, be sure to click around to get a flavor for her writing.  Thanks so much, Amber for this lovely opportunity!

 

Photo credit: www.jeremybinns.com 

This is a Mother's Love

God is the source of all love; whenever we show love, whenever we experience love, we are experiencing an aspect of God.  For me, the role of mother, as one who loves and is loved, has been a revelation of many aspects of God's love.  The following piece, gracefully published by SheLoves Magazinel explores the texture of this mothering love which reveals one small yet important aspect of God's deep, unyielding love for us.

 *   *   *

“...the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” – Gerard Manley Hopkins

Silent and still, like a gray stone nestled inside the evergreen, she is almost but not quite hidden from the world. Tucked in and under, behind the bushy green branches, a Mourning Dove sits on a nest like none I’ve ever seen. Wide and spacious, it opens out around her like a cupped hand holding her body, her warmth, her eggs.

She caught my eye one day gathering sticks near the foundation of our house. Her body, soft and gray, moved with purpose: picking, choosing her wares before flying to the pine tree, then back again for more. Later, my kids confirmed the nest and the eggs it held: her treasure, hidden.

Waiting for the bus with my older kids one morning, chilled by April’s soggy wind and rain, I think of her sheltered there. What wisdom led her, I wonder, to that place of safety, that tiny harbor within the boughs of the evergreen tree?

Click HERE to continue reading and leave a comment over at the SheLoves site.  

Gratitude (the first day of shorts weather)

. . . for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his. . . 

- Gerard Manly Hopkins

 

Long and leggy, doe-eyed, 

she walks with confidence, 

a gentle fawn, a young colt.

He is all angles, sharp protrusions, 

limbs like the branches

of a young tree.

They both wear socks 

pulled up high because 

they don't know any better.

 

And then there are the little ones.  

Isaiah with his gentle roundness - 

a gum drop, a plum, a dumpling, we say

searching for words to express.

Levi, bare-chested in the sun

his shoulders thrown back, goggles on,

he stands on the picnic table, "working."

These ones pad along on bare feet, 

toes like ripe berries,

soft and sweet, fresh.

 

It is the first day of shorts weather,

the beginning of shoe-less summer

and all around me limbs unveil 

earth's sweetness, lovely.  

This post is linked with Five Minute Fridays on the prompt "Grateful." Click over to read more posts.